I was the Editor-in-Chief of Home Entertainment magazine and former Technical Editor of Home Theater magazine. Now, in addition to Forbes, I write about all aspects of technology here and at CNET, TheWirecutter.com, HDGuru.com, Sound+Vision magazine, and several others. My articles have also been in or on NBCNews.com, Salon.com, Men’s Journal, Consumers Digest, Popular Photography, Robb Report and more. In my free time I travel to exotic locations and eat their food. My first novel, Undersea, was an Amazon and B&N bestseller, and can be found there, on any e-reader, and at UnderseaNovel.com. You can follow me on Twitter @TechwriterGeoff.

Oppo PM-1 Headphone Review: Are These $1,000 Headphones A Bargain?

The first thing you need to know about the Oppo PM-1 is that they’re not like most other headphones. They’re planar magnetic, which means they don’t create sound with the traditional dynamic driver. I’ve reviewed three other planar magnetic headphones here at Forbes, all were excellent, and if you’re keeping track, the majority of the most expensive headphones in the world are planar magnetic.

You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of Oppo. Here in the States they’re known for making high-end, but excellent, Blu-ray players. Home theater enthusiasts drool over them, as they pack their models with lots of features not found elsewhere.

In China, however, they sell a lot more. I remember passing Oppo stores there, sort of a like Sony or Bose stores here. Mostly they sell mobile phones and such.

So it would have been easy, for a brand with a certain level of tech cred, plus Chinese manufacturing, to churn out some mediocre headphones and sell a bunch. In the past few years we’ve seen many companies do this: throwing crap against the wall in hopes of getting a piece of the booming headphone market. It doesn’t matter if it sticks, just as long as they can make a quick buck.

That’s not what Oppo did.

Build and Fit

First, they got the feel right. The PM-1s feel solid, but aren’t particularly heavy. Most planar magnetic headphones carry some serious mass, and weigh down your noggin. The PM-1s feel just a bit heavier than most decent over-ear headphones. But they feel like a pair of high-end headphones, which isn’t the given you’d hope it would be in this category.

And they’re really comfortable. The pads are soft, with very little pressure on/around your ears.

Sound

The overall sound character of the PM-1s is one of openness, a trademark of open-back designs, plus full-sounding bass and a purity to the treble that is practically non-existent in headphones not made with planar magnetic drivers. In a word, they sound great (ok, that’s technically 3 words)

I started with Richard Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” from The Chrono Show. The initial attack on his acoustic guitar had an immediacy rarely heard on headphones. Quick transients, even when powered by an Apple iPod (more on that later). There was an excellent sense of space. If anything, there was a bit of a dip in the male vocal range, setting it back a bit in the mix (something heard on other tracks too), but it wasn’t severe. There wasn’t a lot of high treble extension, though the PM-1s never felt closed in or muffled.

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